All About Wedding Insurance in India

Indian wedding is a grand affair. People in India save for this moment in life for years and sometimes generations. If it’s a girl child then parents start investing in a wedding budget since her birth. These small savings and investments are later utilized to cherish best moments in their children’s life. Modern Indians are not much dependent on parents for wedding expenses anymore.

In fact, they are paying for this grand event from their own salary and letting the parents take a back seat. But wedding is a serious business. There are lot of worries and events involved and in case anything goes wrong, you don’t have anywhere to go. The non-life insurance corporations in India have started offering wedding insurance to cover this risk.

Wedding insurance policies are already available from players like ICICI Lombard and Bajaj Allianz. Other players are offering similar policies through general insurance framework.

Various companies offer wedding insurance with different cover options. Bajaj Allianz customers can choose from four cover options which are Rs.8 lacs, Rs.6 lacs, Rs.4 lacs and Rs.2 lacs. The premium for this cover is somewhere between Rs.3770 to Rs.14276. The Bajaj’s policy will protect you from cancellation due to natural disaster, fire hazard, and accident of groom/bride, property damage due to theft, burglary, and death of blood relative within seven days of the wedding date. It also includes damage happened by food poisoning during ceremony.

ICICI Lombard, on the other hand gives cover for property damage, wedding cancellation, personal accident insurance for bride and groom and any public liability due to cancellation. The reason for cancellation of the wedding should be due to earthquake, fire, theft, burglary at the venue. The ICICI wedding insurance also gives insurance cover to bride or groom if he or she fails to reach at wedding ceremony due to an accident, death or major illness.

It’s a must for someone who plans to have a monsoon wedding, as you just can’t predict how heavily it will rain on the day of your choice.

What is not covered?

Under the wedding insurance, expense on printing cards, caterer, music, decorator, travel and hotel along with the venue rent is covered. It doesn’t include the cancellation of wedding due to a terrorist attack, kidnapping, civil unrest or shut down of transportation. Along with this, only traveling on a registered commercial airline is covered under the insurance. Other modes of transport without consent of insurer won’t be under the cover.

In a wedding, you already have thousands of things to worry about. Such wedding product will at least reduce some worries and let you enjoy the moment. It will give you the much needed ‘peace of mind’ because even though marriages are made in heaven, you have to plan them on the Earth, where many factors are out of your personal control.

Even if you go by the cost-benefit ratio, the premium of insurance is very small fraction of total expenditure. One must study the list of inclusions and exclusions along with all terms and conditions before opting for wedding insurance.